With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Friday, December 18, 2015

The California stem cell agency received modest news coverage today of the official launch of its five-year plan for spending its last $890 million.

Articles appeared in The Sacramento Bee, the San Diego Union-Tribune and on Southern California public radio. California Healthline also carried a piece that summarized most of the coverage.

The number of stories may seem insignificant to some, but it is much more than the agency usually receives. It has all but vanished from the public eye. Rest assured, however, that situation can change in a flash when something truly bad or good surfaces.

The coverage mirrors that of most state agencies, which operate in obscurity until a dramatic issue flares up.

We should mention that the only news outlet in the state that pays reasonably regular attention to the stem cell agency is the San Diego Union-Tribune. It has assigned Bradley Fikes to its biotech beat. He was the only reporter from the mainstream media at the meeting yesterday of the stem cell agency board.

Also of note was the agency's own blog piece, written by Kevin McCormack, senior director for communications. Here is how his item began.

"The poet T. S. Eliot once wrote: 'If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?' Well, everyone at CIRM, California’s stem cell institute, is about to find out how tall we are."

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.